Sunday’s Top Links (5.5.2013)

flower

Welcome to this week’s top links!

1. The Secrets of 7 Successful Brands

Each company approaches branding in a unique way, find out the secrets of these 7 successful brands.

2. The 4 Unique Working Styles

There are four unique working styles: doing, leading, loving, and learning. What’s yours?

3. The Reward

Words aren’t needed to tell this fantastic story about two people and a wild adventure.

4. A Case For Why Green Design Must Be Beautiful

An interesting exploration as to why green design has to focus more on aesthetics and not just function.

5. Why Your Brain Loves Music

A new study explores the link between music, pleasure, and neuroscience.

And if you missed last week’s links check them out here.

Sunday’s Top Links (3.3.2013)

risk

Welcome to this week’s links!

1. How To Take Intelligent Career Risks

The world has changed and we now need to know how and when to take risks with our careers.

2. 10 Words To Stop Misspelling

A funny guide from The Oatmeal that takes us through some common, basic spelling errors that we see FAR too often.

3. How To Train Your Brain To Multitask

To multitask or not to multitask? It’s easier said than done, but how can we do it more effectively?

4. Danger Planet

In four minutes experience a simple, clever love story about two space pilots & a dangerous foe. Reminds me of Wall-e.

5. Talent Is Nothing Without Focus

Haruki Marukami, award winning author, shares his insight on the relationship between talent and focus.

And if you missed last weeks links, check them out here.

Image by graziedavvero

Sunday’s Top Links (11.11.2012)

Creative Ways

Welcome to this week’s top links!

1. Why We Suck At Predictions

We see patterns everywhere, but we seem to misinterpret the signal from the noise. Learn why we suck at predictions and how we can improve.

2. 29 Ways To Stay Creative

This short video-graphic outlines 29 great ways for anyone to spark some creativity in their everyday life.

3. From Message To Movement: 11 Principles To Spread Ideas

Taking something from message to movement is easier said than done, but these 11 principles are a great guide to make it happen.

4. Internet Trends 2012

Seen as THE expert on the internet, Mary Meeker shares her outlook on Internet Trends for 2012.

5. Gen Y: Slacktivists Or Socially Conscious

Generation Y has often been considered to be slacktivists, but this report uncovers the truth about the current generation and social good.

And if you missed last weeks links, check them out here.

What Is Kickstarter?

kickstarter_graphic_v2-1

Kickstarter is a platform I’ve been following since its inception in 2009 and its amazing how far its come to date. The basic idea is getting funding from people who support your work, simply because they believe in what you’re doing. The foundation of Kickstarter is crowdfunding, one of four different strategies stemming form crowdsourcing. Crowdfunding is exactly what it sounds like, using the crowd to fund projects. Its an innovative model and I suggest everyone participate either through their own creative projects or a small donation to a project you find interesting.

To learn more, check out the video below on how Kickstarter Funds Creativity or visit their website.

Funding Creativity with Kickstarter from Piers Fawkes on Vimeo.

SHINE: The Entrepreneur’s Journey

shine

SHINE is a collaborative film project produced by Biznik.com, an online network for small business owners (mostly solopreneurs). In this short film, the story is shared of hundreds of entrepreneurs and why they do what they do.

I really enjoyed the wide range of perspectives that were covered in the film, hitting on both the highs and lows of this career path. It was also interesting to understand some of the psychology behind entrepreneurs, and their traits of novelty seeking. Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

Sunday’s Top Links (2.13.2011)

Welcome to this week’s Sunday’s Top Links.

1. Innovate Like A Kindergartner

What are the keys to innovation? It can be as simple as thinking back to the good old days when we were in kindergarten. In this article from the Harvard Business Review we look at what we can learn from kindergarten.

2. Topicmarks

Don’t have time to read a document? A book? An article? Well Topicmarks claims to have developed the perfect algorithm to give you a short and sweet summary of any text you input. Now I can’t say its perfect, but its an interesting tool to check out.

3. The Future Of Art

I really enjoyed the video, but not necessarily for the content itself, which was overall quite good and talked about major themes for the future of art. Why I really enjoyed it is because it got my head buzzing with all sorts of ideas and I love anything that can trigger my creativity.

4. yKombinator

Recently there have been a number of generators coming out, making fun of some of the trends we’re seeing today. This one is a startup simulator that pokes fun at the formulaic manner we see many of these web start-ups pitching themselves nowadays. Other recent ones have been the Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator and the Mflow Random Album Generator.

5. Seeking Technology

Many of us are glued to Google, Facebook, and texting, which are all new habits that many couldn’t live without. Slate.com explores this phenomenon and explains the role of th brain in all this and why its dangerous.

Enjoy! And if you missed last week’s links check them out here.

Sunday’s Top Links (1.9.2011)

Welcome back to Sunday’s Top Links! I’m posting this from my mobile phone while on a road trip to Raleigh, gotta love technology.

1. 20 Predictions for the Next 25 Years

From The Guardian (UK) we get 20 telling predictions of what will happen in the next 25 years, both the good and the bad. Predictions include politics, energy, gaming, nature, transport and more.

2. Create a PDF Resume from LinkedIn

Need to make a resume? Why not utilize a new service from LinkedIn that allows you to use your profile to create a quick and easy resume and avoid all that tedious formatting. This one of many new features being rolled out by LinkedIn, who are making the most of their business social network.

3. 10 TED Talks for Entrepreneurs

Need some inspiration for your next startup? Check out this compilation of 10 TED Talks focused on entrepreneurship, including talks from Seth Godin, Derek Sivers, and Gary Vaynerchuk.

4. Ten Questions For Game Changers

A preview from the new book Practically Radical, we see ten questions that anyone who wants to be a game changer must be able to answer. Questions include being able to identify opportunities and assessing your customer loyalty.

5. Vimeo Video School

Interested in learning how to create videos? Vimeo has launched a Video School through their website that teaches you everything you need to know, from the basics to much more advanced techniques.

What Is Collaborative Consumption?

The essence of collaborative consumption is the sharing of anything and everything with our peers within the communities we are part of. All of this started in the 21st century and the age of hyper consumption has been a direct instigator of the collaborative consumption movement. Examples of this are shared work spaces, marketplaces, car sharing, P2P networks, recycling goods, and much more. Check out the video below to learn more.

If you’re interested, check out the new book What’s Mine Is Yours by Rachel Botsman or visit the website at www.collaborativeconsumption.com and start SHARING.

The Procrastinators

In the first of 11 episodes on procrastination by Lernert & Sander, we see a monologue about a writer and his struggles with focusing on his work. Watch it below and unless you read Dutch you’ll have to read the subtitles, so I suggest you put it in fullscreen as its hard to read the white on white text… Enjoy!

I don’t know about you, but I definitely am able to connect with a number of the themes in this video. How do we overcome this difficulty in focusing on the tasks we need to get done?? That’s a question we’d all love to know the answer to and a topic that I’ll explore further in a later post. Anyways, if you enjoyed the first episode, check out the rest of them here.

Everything Is A Remix

A great video talking about the “Remix” and asking the question, is Everything a Remix? Check it out below.

So is Everything a Remix? Its an interesting idea, as we see many people borrowing ideas and concepts from one another and some artists even coming out and saying that the best artists steal. Instead of calling it stealing though, I feel its essentially intersecting, where we take existing concepts from different places and combine them into something “new”. What do you think?

How Trends & Creativity Become Contagious

Influencers is a video about how certain people are able to influence trends, spark creativity, and make ideas contagious. Check out the video below by R + I Creative.

How can we cultivate more influential people in the world? There are a number of different factors that come into consideration, but one is certainly education. The school system needs to focus more on nurturing the creativity of the next generation, rather than killing it. What other ways can we develop a generation of influencers?